Gave up... Joining the food coop today...

Yeah, you guys keep perpetuating rumors about how crazy the Coop is...that'll keep it from getting any more crowded.

Every time I've gone past there (which has been admittedly few) I have seen only clean people. And yuppie type jackasses blocking up the street with their SUVs.

It was the upfront investment that kept us from joining, back when we thought we'd only be here a year or two.

Plus the "you must attend an orientation" if you want to peek in and see if you'd be interested.

stutter wrote: Walked past the co-op about 7pm on Thursday night. For some reason there looked to be a line of sorts of about 15 co-op members out front. From the looks of things, that crew had probably seen about two showers between them for the entire week. Now, I am not trying to stereotype here, but hippies + food = hippies handling food. ugh.

Does the co-op sell soap?

No. Stay away.

commie.

How many Greatful Dead bootlegs do you have to own to be considered for membership?

I'm on a 5:30AM Sat shift and aside from getting up for a 5:30AM shift, I love the co-op. I truly enjoy working with my squad getting the produce shelves filled and looking good. There are annoying people everywhere, but I have made friends at the co-op, I 've gotten to see a play written by one of my fellow workers and when a co-worker was injured andwas on a medical leave of absence, some of us took her out to dinner. I look forward to seeing fellow workers once of month on my shift and catching up and asking about their kids and what colleges they were accepted to or what books they recently read, etc. So, although nothing is perfect, the coop has been more positive than negative. THe prices and quality of produce cannot be beat. I also shop at Costco, the Fairway, and C-town so I'm not shopping at the coop day in an day out . That might be too annoying.

LongTimeSloper wrote: I am not a member and will never be. Fairway has good prices and you don;'t have to work there or give them money to shop there either.

And, the Key Food on 5th Avenue is excellent.

but, if the co-op is your thing, enjoy

Ditto. Would never join the cult er co-op and Key Food on 5th is excellent.

J0510 "Besides, stocking cans of tomatoes or running a cash register will take me back to being nineteen again, without the sexual awkwardness."

Whew, good to know!

I'm a co-op member but I also shop at Fairway and Costco. They each have their advantages, but I wouldn't use either to replace the co-op for regular weekly shopping.

Costco is incredibly cheap, if you're willing to buy in bulk, but there's barely a fraction of the produce items.

Fairway is good, and you can get things there you can't at the co-op (like a wide variety of meat from a real butcher counter). But if I did my weekly shop at Fairway instead of the co-op and bought the same items, I would spend far, far more. "Fairway is just as cheap" only holds true if: you replace organic produce with non-organic, you replace brands available at the co-op with different, cheaper brands and/or you make a point of trying to buy items that are on sale. (At the co-op there are no sales, since everything is always sold at a certain percentage above wholesale--20%? 21%?) Price out stuff like Ben's cream cheese--Fairway's a good deal for a supermarket, and yet it's almost twice as expensive per pound as the co-op.

I also generally find the quality of produce items at the co-op better than at Fairway, probably because of the higher turnover (owing both to the smaller shelf space and high volume). But Fairway's produce quality is generally very good, especially compared with C-Town, Key Food, etc.

bullyboy wrote: It was the upfront investment that kept us from joining, back when we thought we'd only be here a year or two.

Plus the "you must attend an orientation" if you want to peek in and see if you'd be interested.

Not true--you can get a tour without going to an orientation.

I've been a member for two years. The produce is great. I have noticed that the prices at the co-op are also going up. Not as bad as elsewhere, but they too have had to increase prices.